A little sumthin-sumthin

There I was-- a mere two lanes of traffic across from my office when, suddenly, a green Navigator ran smack into the back of silver Mercedes, effectively blocking my only route to work. All hell broke loose, immediately. Every car behind the collision began to lay on their horns. A firefighter's SUV broke out of the pack of traffic and beelined to the crash, further blocking any effort on anyone's part to get where they needed to be.

I sighed, turned up Busy P - Rainbow Man, and sat with my blinker on for fifteen minutes and enjoyed the show. I watched both yuppies get out of their cars, feigning neck pain, violently texting the other's license plate number to their respective lawyers and shooting each other the coldest gazes you can imagine. I watched the firefighters give each other exasperated looks as they assessed the damage, which was minimal at 15mph and thanks to composite bumper materials. They took the crashers' vitals, called an ambulance to the scene, and began directing traffic onto the sidewalk.

I watched the firefighters-- now apparently in charge of the crash-- as they walked down the long line of traffic building behind the impact and cherry-picked a wrecker out of the clog. It bucked the ground as it searched for a place to lay down its wrecker ramp and chains and nonsense, eventually deciding that my office's parking lot was the best place for wreck wreckin'.

Throughout this whole ordeal-- which, by the way, is a little ridiculous when I consider that I actually waited for the crash to clear instead of just parking across the street or using the wreck as an excuse to skip work altogether-- I remained calm, placid, and cool. I waited patiently. I people-watched.

People are entertainingly predictable. They're fun to look at when you put your sense of urgency to the side and just watch.